


I Won't Give Up

by AU Mer-Maid (neonstardust)



Series: The YahaShira Playlist [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, June YahaShira Day 2018, Songfic, YahaShira Day, YahaShira Day 2018, graphic depictions of injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 20:39:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14901599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonstardust/pseuds/AU%20Mer-Maid
Summary: "You'll get better."A promise.A hope.A lie.





	I Won't Give Up

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Em, you're going to do whatever you want anyway, but, please, be cautious
> 
> For everyone else: Happy YahaShira Day!
> 
> Formerly a gift for Em

"We should break up." Yahaba's mouth moves, but the voice leaving his lips isn't his. Broken, defeated, numb, it splinters lifelessly from his throat like he is nothing more than a corpse, a puppet reading off a script.

Shirabu's heart pounds hard, yet the beat is slow, climbing up his chest inch by inch to block off his throat. "Why?"

"It's better—"

"No," Shirabu snaps. "Give me a real reason. Tell the truth."

Yahaba doesn't look at him. As the last rays of the sun die behind the horizon, cold shadows streak down his face like tears. "I'm worthless now."

"You're wrong." Shirabu wants to yell, to scream from the top of his lungs, but the words crumble from his lips as a whisper.

"Just go."

"No."

Not lifting his head, Yahaba glares up at him. Unbrushed bangs hang limp in his face. "I can't do this anymore, Kenjirou. I can't—I can't anything." His shoulders tremble. Biting his lip, he breathes hard. "I'm a prisoner," Yahaba hisses, "in my own body."

Shirabu opens his mouth only to close it. His fingers twitch, hand moving to touch him, to comfort him, to slap some common sense back into him, but Shirabu drops it back to his side. Helplessly, he watches walls rise between them, messy and jagged, mixed with so many broken pieces that he can no longer tell whose walls they were to begin with.

"The physical therapy will..." Shirabu starts, but Yahaba curls in on himself. One hand covers his ear, trying to block out the sounds, while the other dangles, awkward and useless.

"There's no point. There's no fixing this." Yahaba bites down on a sob, as if the words leave his throat bloody and raw. "The doctor… They're going to amputate."

"What?" Panic lights a fire in his chest. Shirabu drags in a breath, then another, but his head spins.

Movements slow, methodical, Yahaba rests his arm on his lap, unravelling the bandages around his elbow. Pale skin. Splattered bruises. As the bandages slip off his forearm, Yahaba moves more quickly, tearing at the elastic, yanking the brace from his wrist until the gauze falls away. Darkness engulfs them, but it can't hide the stitches or scabs. Mangled fingers curl awkwardly without their splint. "There's no fixing this," Yahaba repeats. His good hand strokes along shredded skin, ghosting over the empty places where muscles used to be. His bones almost seem to protrude; the space where his littlest fingers used to be sticks out, startlingly empty.

Words cling to Shirabu's tongue, empty platitudes, desolate hopes, an argument that refuses to take form. He opens his mouth again, but the earth shakes beneath him, a crashing sea swallowing him whole, slamming him into the rocks, until, gasping, breathless, he feels himself drowning in an ocean that isn't there.

Yahaba slides the splints back on, carefully packaged with rewrapped gauze, folded into neat lines. Weeks of muscle memory guide his hand to wind the bandages, bracing the ends against his thigh. Shirabu watches desperately, searching for hope, for a glimmer of silver in the clouds thundering around them, but he finds only stiff movements, whimpers muffled behind a bitten lip, a heart that had already given up long ago.

"You should leave."

"I don't care about your hand." Shirabu swallows hard. "Your hand isn't you. You're still _you_."

"I'm not."

"Shut up."

"I can't play volleyball. I can't play piano. I can't even use a pencil." Yahaba laughs bitterly. "I don't have anything anymore."

"Shut up. That's... No. You'll learn to write again. The piano... We'll figure something out."

Yahaba finally lifts his head, but what Shirabu sees only makes his heart sink deeper into his stomach. "Goodbye, Kenjirou."

Yahaba stands, and something snaps in Shirabu's chest. Grabbing his shoulders, he forces Yahaba to look at him. "Since when are you such a quitter," Shirabu growls. Hollow eyes widen, and Shirabu sees a glimmer of something familiar in them, of hot chocolate shared on bad days, of a tiny sun overshadowing a forest, soundless except for gentle bickering and a volleyball set high into the trees, of a sky blazing with stars in the dead of night, traced with sleepy promises, lingering touches, the cold of not enough blankets buried beneath the heat of a head resting on his chest. Of a world that was never bathed in blood and screams and shattered bones.

"You didn't come this far just to give up."

"Kenjirou—"

"I won't give up on us."

Yahaba's shoulders tense beneath his grip, but Shirabu feels the walls tremble, crumbling in on themselves. 

"Don't try to protect me. I don't care how tough it is. I'm not here for volleyball or pianos or your ugly nerd pencils."

"Star Wars isn't nerdy."

"It's nerdy as hell. Face the facts, Shigeru, you're a nerd. And you're still going to be one without volleyball and piano. As unfortunate as it is, I'm going to be stuck with you as my nerd for a long time."

Yahaba's lips twitch, the first semblance of a smile Shirabu can remember seeing in weeks. "Sounds rough.” Words a bitter cross between serious and playful, he asks, “Why don't you just walk away?"

Shirabu tilts his head back, gaze trailing over fading gray clouds, and pretends to think it over, pretends that for even one second he could picture a life without stolen blankets and Disney marathons and seeing Yahaba's stupid grin every day, warming his heart more than the midday sun.

"Because you're worth it," Shirabu says, no lies, no sarcasm, no longer holding anything back. "So, whether you like it or not, I'm here to stay, dipstick."

Yahaba stares at him as if Shirabu suddenly sprouted a second head. But, ever so slightly, his lips twitch into a smile, and then he's pulling Shirabu closer, hugging him tightly, laughter shaking his shoulders.

Yahaba's right arm rubs against Shirabu's side at an awkward angle, dangling off into empty space. _Different_. But, snaking his own arms around Yahaba's waist, Shirabu knows it's a kind of different he can get used to.

"I love you."

Shirabu feels Yahaba smile against his neck. "I love you, too."

Overhead, the clouds rumble, but the sky clears, the storm already far beyond them.

"Kenjirou?"

"If you make a Star Wars pun right now, I'll murder you."

Yahaba snorts, but his voice grows quiet when he asks, "You sure you want to do this?"

"Yeah." Titling his head back, Shirabu watches the first stars burn to life, sparkling with a new hope.

 _For you, I’ll keep looking up_.


End file.
